World of Kurphath

This game is about a far-future Earth wherein the inhabitants, by and large, are rather ignorant of mankind's history — and thus, bound to repeat it. It's about the dissonance between technology and rugged individualism, the tension between rulers and the ruled. It's a game in which ancient technological artifacts from man's past create ripples in the present that are variously hued — exciting, confusing, even horrifying. It's a game in which we find out whether — given the chance to repeat more than two millenium of discoveries — people can improve upon their past record. And it's a game in which the protagonists just might get clued in to a conspiracy so vast as to be almost unimaginable.

In this adventure setting, you play in a future Earth that has descended in some places into tribalism, and many places into a system roughly feudal in nature. Some locales are fairly advanced, in that some ancient technologies have survived, albeit piecemeal. It's Swiss Family Robinson meets Numenera meets Die Hard.

Characters in this game begin young. Perhaps
sixteen to twenty-five. As the game progresses, they age. As they grow older, they learn new skills and discover new talents. As they grow older, however, age creeps up on them like an inevitable shadow. You can’t escape it. Always around the corner.

This game is not about a constant push upward toward perfection. It is about doing everything you can in the time you have. It is about the importance of relationships, and of intangibles such as loyalty, honor, and friendship. There’s a clock on your character, constantly ticking, that hour hand always moving toward midnight.

This game is about passions, and the price they carry. It is a game about tragedy. Now, most folks think tragedy means “when something awful happens.” That’s not what we’re talking about here. What we’re talking about is when the main character makes a terrible but well-informed choice.

Combat certainly will have a role; however, PCs also need to be inquisitive, driven, and good investigators.

Events in this setting are happening some 2,500 years after the 21st century. Be aware of what a significant stretch of time that is. A great Cataclysm occurred at some point in man's history. Most data about it hasn't survived the intervening centuries.

The current level of technology is difficult to specify because some locales benefit from automated technology from former eras, in some cases not even realizing it as technology but instead as an effect of nature. There are people living in huge arcologies that could easily house 10,000 times the current occupants. But there are others who dwell in caves in the hills, or shacks, or wigwams.

The PCs will encounter people who believe in a God, those who profess they draw magic from the land, and even those who believe they are living in some sort of Afterlife.

People run the gamut from hostile to welcoming, from ignorant savages to sophisticated sages with surprising theories about the ancient past.

The stories of Kurphath portray the exploits of characters ranging from vat-grown beauties to wandering
scoundrels to vainglorious magicians, who eat, drink,
gamble, explore, and cheat their way through what is widely presumed to be the final era of history. Above them, the sun has reddened and grown spotty with age; all assume that it will soon extinguish itself.

Kurphath's cities are places of exotic and decadent beauty, still dotted here and there with wonders of the previous Age. Strange foods and bizarre clothing are commonplace. The world is littered with forgotten ruins and plagued by dangerously effective predators.

Only the foolhardy or powerful venture far from the safety of their communities. The latter group is intimately familiar with arcane secrets of magic, which, though wondrous and impressive, are mere shadows of the achievement of previous ages.

Your character, should she survive long enough, will undoubtedly suffer reversals on occasion. Hopefully, less often than gains in the form of relationships, wealth, experience, and knowledge.